


The Logic of Creation

by Caia (Caius)



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Creation, Four Million Years, Gen, Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-01
Updated: 2010-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-13 14:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caius/pseuds/Caia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Left behind on Cybertron, Shockwave passes the time by making toys. And the occasional mech.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Logic of Creation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://katharos.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**katharos**](http://katharos.dreamwidth.org/) in the [2010 Transformers Gift Exchange](http://the-fic-trader.dreamwidth.org/tag/challenge:+tf+gift+exchange). Very much thanks to [](http://katarik.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**katarik**](http://katarik.dreamwidth.org/) for last-minute beta and to [](http://spacehussy.livejournal.com/profile)[**spacehussy**](http://spacehussy.livejournal.com/) for helping me find an ending (and also a middle)!

Megatron was first, of course.

It took nearly a vorn, because Shockwave would neither let himself devote excessive energy or time to such a frivolous project, nor allow his creation to be less than perfect.

But Shockwave had time. There was time, and there was metal.

Cybertron was covered in metal, in small pieces and large, used and smelted and cut to be used again, and ultimately discarded, as there was far more metal than energy to use it.

He had only to wait, and to watch, running a small program in his mind, Megatron's plans in miniature, every piece labeled and described.

And, inevitably, one after another he found the right pieces; the plates of metal in the right shapes and sizes; the rods and springs and mechanism to switch him from one form to the other; the innards of an old laser weapon, to simulate on a very small scale Megatron's fusion cannon.

No processor, no spark, and the simple transformation cog did not size shift. The model--the toy, Shockwave supposed it was--fit perfectly in his hand as a gun (not that he had held Megatron like this very often; it was more efficient for him to use his own firepower), and transformed into a Megatron that hardly came up to his knee.

It moved, when Shockwave moved it, and Shockwave obtained the proper paint and polish to make it look like Megatron.

It wasn't Megatron. Shockwave knew that, he had not lost his senses, despite what the other inhabitants of the dying planet liked to whisper.

But it helped him remember who Megatron was.

When he'd put the final touch on his small Lord, he took it out and used it to kill five hungry, desperate Autobots, quickly and painlessly.

He hadn't bothered to kill an Autobot in vorns, since before he even made the design for his small Megatron. It had been largely pointless; they were dying off or sinking into stasis from famine far quicker than Shockwave and his forces could kill them, and with far less energy expenditure.

The energy required to kill an Autobot was, in almost all cases, greater than the energy resources that Autobot would consume in the rest of its life.

But with even a model of his Lord in his hand, it seemed different. His creation would not be complete until it had killed.

Shockwave scavenged what resources he could from the dead Autobots, and drew the small reserves of energon from their tanks to power his new weapon.

It was not much. Shockwave calculated that all five of them would have starved within .34 of a vorn, at most.

And then he returned to his tower, carefully cleaned Megatron, transformed him a few times, and placed him on a shelf by his recharge compartment.

****

Optimus Prime was next. Shockwave might not have created Optimus at all, except for the chance that one of the five Autobots he killed was a mech named Pyro, who suffered from _primus apotheosis_ , an obsession with the Autobot Prime.

Among the wreckage was an extremely rudimentary model of the Autobot's lost Prime--not even transformable, and made of metal that would have rusted and fallen apart even before its owner, had Shockwave not intervened--and it seemed entirely logical, in the context, that Shockwave bring it back, with some of Pyro's own components, and improve on the Autobot's legacy.

It took only half a vorn, although by the time it was done, nothing remained of the original toy--Shockwave's Prime was an entirely improved version, built of colorful metal almost as strong as the alloys Shockwave had used for his Megatron. Almost.

When Shockwave had completed it, he staged some battles between it and Megatron, reenacting Decepticon victories and restrategizing Decepticon defeats.

The obvious next step--after doing the necessary repairs to both figures, of course--was to create more. After all, there were more to the Decepticon and Autobot forces than just Megatron and Optimus Prime.

*****

Seeker parts were nearly as common as scraps of metal on Cybertron, and it wasn't long before Shockwave had three models of the appropriate size and paint job. They were hardly a challenge to assemble, although it wasn't worth the energy to make them (or any of the rest) actually fly.

Like Megatron and Optimus before them, they were purely mechanical creations.

He could create slightly more sophisticated battle plans, now; and he could also dramatize the clashes between Megatron and Starscream, constructing many ways in which the Air Commander could be quickly and easily destroyed, or neutralized.

(He had learned millions of years before both of them had left that it was best not to share such suggestions with Megatron. As excellent as his Lord was in many ways, he did not take criticism well.)

But the small Megatron he held in his hand would never act illogically, would only do what Shockwave thought best...it was unsatisfying.

Using his Megatron to vaporize his Starscream was a brief, wasteful thrill.

He considered rebuilding him, but, no. He could do better than that. In the process of gathering seeker-model pieces, he had found more than enough full-sized spare parts to construct a full trine, if he had had the energy to spark them, and it would be a more productive use of his time than acting out what, he realized, were his less than logical impulses.

The frame was simple enough. The programming, however, took half-a-vorn; he wanted no such mistakes as had left in the _Nemesis_ ; there was no energy to waste on treachery or incompetence or doubts.

He needed a seeker--an Air Commander, if he was worthy--built strong, and loyal, and above all logical. Someone, perhaps, Shockwave could talk to about important matters, but not one who would bother him when he was not needed.

In half a vorn, the programming was complete, or as complete as it could be when Shockwave could not test it in practice. He carefully selected a laser core from storage, stripped it of its own personality programming, and input what he had created.

It took the greater part of an orn for the laser core to integrate. With greater energon stores, that could be completed in less than a breem, but Shockwave had more time than anything else. All other business dealt with, Shockwave simply stood there, all unnecessary functions offline, and waited for his creation to awaken.

140.5 breems later, his creation sat up and looked himself over. "I am Acid Storm," he said, having just discovered the fact. He turned and looked at Shockwave, examining him with the same thorough consideration he had used on himself, the gaze that Acid Storm had had programmed into him. "You're Shockwave." That, too, had been programmed into him. "Are you on yet?"

Partly. The moment Acid Storm had started moving, Shockwave's systems started returning to life along with his creation's. "Yes," he said, when it was as true as it was likely to be. "I am still in power-saving mode, however. You will find in your programming a list of systems that should remain turned off unless needed."

"Oh." Acid Storm's optics dimmed as he accessed his internal control programming for the very first time. It was only a short time before the hum of the newborn seeker's engines diminished to a level acceptable to their current circumstances. "What is my function, then, if I am not to fly?"

"For now, you study. I have accumulated much information about the planet, over the vorns, and I need an assistant to process it. Here." Shockwave pinged Acid Storm's automatic firewall override with a file containing information on Cybertron's weather patterns over the last million years. "Start there."

His creation's optics switched off entirely as he attempted to assimilate the data. It was only a short time, however, before he looked back into his creator's face. "Thank you. I will enjoy this."

Of course he would; Shockwave had programmed to. It would be about three and a half vorns, Shockwave projected, before Acid Storm would be able to surprise him. "Yes. I will expect a report within a decacycle. The comm frequency to use is already in your programming. You need not leave the room." Shockwave had already used too much energy creating Acid Storm; there was no need to waste more of it by unnecessary motion.

"Yes, Shockwave," said the seeker, absently; his processor was already busy reviewing temperature and precipitation data.

Shockwave was pleased with his latest creation.

*****

Acid Storm kept Shockwave more entertained than he'd expected. His creation was hardly capable of anything yet that hadn't been programmed into him, but his very predictability was pleasant. His predictability and the slow defiance of entropy he represented, as he took in the data that Shockwave had neither the time nor the energy to do anything with and generated useful reports; and as he was, himself, a new life on a planet which had seen nothing but death for half a million years.

He had been created without the restless desire for movement, for flight, that plagued the rest of his frame type; there was no energy for that. He would fly when it was needed, or when there was the energy for him to waste in doing so. He did, however, have an endless desire for _knowledge_ , and when it wasn't satisfied by the data Shockwave gave him to process, or to learn, he would wander about the tower, inspecting everything and gathering all the information from every small item in his path.

Shockwave approved. This, truly, was a superior creation. Not an Air Commander, as of yet, but perhaps a second-in-command, if Shockwave had needed such a thing (for there was very little on Cybertron at this point in time that required more attention than Shockwave could give it personally). And when he gave Acid Storm the pass codes to almost everywhere in his domain, he proved himself loyal as well, not making any move to unseat his creator, and if he pried into matters that were not in his purview, it was only for the knowledge, and to serve Shockwave and Cybertron better.

And so it was that Acid Storm found Shockwave's toys. Shockwave returned to his recharge station after a day in the communications tower, sending out messages to Lord Megatron in all available frequencies and found Acid Storm sitting still and quiet, one hand on each of the small planes he had built to resemble Starscream's wingmates (for it had been nearly as easy to make three as one).

"Who are these?" he asked. Shockwave was impressed that he had drawn the appropriate conclusion, that these were 'who' and not 'what'. After all, Acid Storm only knew Shockwave and himself, as of yet, among a whole tower of the inanimate and the non-sentient and the dead.

"Seekers," Shockwave said shortly. "They left with Lord Megatron."

"Oh." Acid Storm transformed them to root mode and back, slowly and carefully. "Like me."

"Same frame type. Your programming is superior." Shockwave plugged himself into his recharge, and his optics glanced over to Megatron, still in his place of honor, untouched by Acid Storm.

"How many of us...of them are there?" Acid Storm sounded wistful, although Shockwave had not programmed him to be lonely.

"One more of that frame type, with Megatron. Five left here." Shockwave left it at that, not providing as usual a databurst of information of the Decepticons he had mentioned. Acid Storm's place was here, with him.

Acid Storm waited expectantly for a breem or so, still examining the toys, until he realized that no further information would be forthcoming. "May I recharge here?" It would, after all, be more energy-efficient than returning to the room where he normally worked.

"Yes." Shockwave moved over a step. "There is another outlet in the wall next to me."

"Thank you."

Shockwave slipped offline with Acid Storm's wing pressing against him and his optics focused on his small Megatron. It was pleasant.

*****

"Are you going to make more?" Acid Storm had noticed both Megatron and Optimus Prime, of course; the Prime toy had been posed on the table with the two seekers, next to the battle plan, and he had recharged next to Megatron as well as Shockwave.

(And they had continued to recharge together, as often as not. Shockwave strongly suspected that Acid Storm was calculating it so that it would just make sense for him to recharge with his creator.

Shockwave didn't know what to make of this. He had programmed Acid Storm to be solitary, like Shockwave himself. But he didn't mention it, and found he didn't truly mind.)

"Perhaps." The whole project had held very little interest for Shockwave. He had other duties, and Acid Storm had been taking up what spare energy he had had for the last half-vorn. Productively so, of course; he had made some major breakthroughs in energy conservation and extraction, having another processor to work for, and true to his name, Acid Storm had had an extremely useful knack for predicting Cybertron's weather patterns.

Shockwave was glad of this. He would have hated to have wasted the energy he'd already put in by having to put Acid Storm into stasis or scrap him for parts. (There was no energy for such a luxury as smelting pools.)

"If you do..." Acid Storm pulled a handful of scrap metal from the storage compartment in his chest. Scrap metal that would, with the appropriate assembly, produce a tiny little seeker. "I have pieces. You said the seekers had a third."

" _No._ " Shockwave turned away. "I have some more historical weather data for you." Shockwave sent it over.

Acid Storm put the scrap away, distracted by the onslaught of data to process.

He stayed distracted for the next orn, finding a number of useful patterns for Shockwave and not mentioning either the other seekers or the toys. But it didn't last long; he had, after all, designed Acid Storm to collect and process data, and he'd never denied him before. So, during a lull in their work, Acid Storm suddenly asked, "Who was the third seeker?"

"Is. He's no more dead than Megatron." The syntax was easier to answer than the question. Acid Storm knew many things, but he still had met no living being but Shockwave, and how to explain Starscream to a Decepticon that had no knowledge of the politics of Lord Megatron's intimates?

But this was Acid Storm. Shockwave knew his programming backwards and forwards, had checked and double-checked for any possible bug or imperfection, and Acid Storm had proved himself both useful and loyal. And, in any case, eventually Lord Megatron would return to them, and he could hardly leave Acid Storm unprepared. He could spare a few orn's weather data processing to prepare Acid Storm for that.

"Prepare for data transfer," Shockwave said, and he pressed a few buttons on his supercomputer. Not all of this information was stored in Shockwave's processor.

Acid Storm nodded. "Ready."

When Shockwave sent the data over, Acid Storm froze, joints locked for stability and almost everything switched off but his processor as he assimilated the massive dataflow--he had very rarely gotten such a large transfer at once, and certainly not one for which he had so little context.

Perhaps Shockwave should have paid more attention to Acid Storm's social programming. It had seemed relatively trivial at the time. But, he had confidence in his design; it might take Acid Storm a few orns, but he would be able to assimilate all of Shockwave's files on the Decepticon army; or at least the fraction that Shockwave deemed likely to be relevant, which was approximately one third.

But he would have to make sure Acid Storm had the appropriate amount of energy. Not wanting to move him just now, he pulled an energy-transfer cable from his side and plugged it into Acid Storm. Shockwave could produce enough excess energy to run them both while he completed his duties for the cycle.

When he completed his duty cycle, Acid Storm was still processing, so he simply guided the seeker to his recharge area and plugged them in together, not breaking the connection between the two of them.

There were two more rounds of this--duty, recharge, more duty, more recharge, and then to duty again--before Acid Storm returned to full consciousness. "I understand," he said, and how could he not? He had all the data. "We do not want a Starscream."

And he went straight back to his duties. He was close to a breakthrough on harnessing Cybertron's deadly rainstorms as a source of energy.

*****

Shockwave's duties took him away from Acid Storm for an orn or two; they met neither to work nor to recharge. When he returned, he found that Acid Storm _had_ made another seeker toy, but not a Starscream. This one was painted yellow all over.

He picked it up and looked it over in bemusement. There had been only one other seeker with that coloration--though closer to orange than true yellow--and of that one, the less said the better. Shockwave had not even included Sunstorm's dossier in Acid Storm's files. "What is this?"

Acid Storm was hard at work, but he turned over to look. "I didn't want to waste the metal I'd gathered. Do you like it?" He seemed anxious in a way that Shockwave had never seen on him before.

"Who is it?" Shockwave examined the mechanism--Acid Storm had made some improvements from his earlier and somewhat half-hearted attempts. "There is no seeker in your files that looks like that."

Acid Storm looked even more anxious, and almost guilty. It was not a good look on him. "He doesn't exist yet. I was hoping--My work, with the storms. It would be easier if there were more than one of us. You can see, here." Acid Storm sent over a data transmission.

Shockwave silently checked his work for a few breems, the toy held tight in his unmoving hand. Acid Storm's logic was flawless. Of course it was, Shockwave had programmed him himself.

Shockwave could not refuse him. "Very well. We will design you a wingmate. I will show you how to write the programming. It will be a long time yet before we have the energy to bring him online, much less to sustain him. That will give us time to make him _properly_." No more mistakes like the ones Megatron had brought to Cybertron with him, or the Coneheads stationed on the other side of the planet. Or like Sunstorm.

Acid Storm smiled, an expression he must have picked up from Shockwave's Decepticon army files, for he hadn't bothered to program it in, initially. "Thank you."

And they went back to work.

*****

There was going to be a ran storm in another half an orn. Acid Storm's numbers said so, and they hadn't been wrong since his first few orns online.

"Even with one of me," Acid Storm said, and he was transmitting the numbers as he spoke, "I can gather enough energy to make it worth flying." It had been a long, hungry vorn; Shockwave and Acid Storm had barely had enough energy to sustain themselves, and none to share with the rest of the scattered Decepticons, or to use for Acid Storm's new wingmate--wingmates, they had decided; the greatest efficiency would be with three. But they hardly had the energy to keep Acid Storm online, so the point was moot.

Shockwave took a breem to check the figures; they were correct, of course, this was Acid Storm's area of expertise, but this was not an area where he could take chances. Certainly not the chance that some vestigial programming from Acid Storm's personality component was driving him to find excuses to fly.

But excuse or not, the logic was flawless, and they were desperate. "Very well. I will unlock that portion of your programming." Shockwave transmitted the codes that would allow Acid Storm to fly, and sent him some files on flying from the archives in his databanks. It would, perhaps, have been a good thing if one of the other jets had been around to train him; but not worth the trouble of having any of the around. Acid Storm would manage.

For the moment, however, the jet reeled and Shockwave instantly reached out to hold him steady as the new programming and systems completely destroyed his sense of balance. "The programming should integrate in time for the rainstorm." Shockwave was 99% sure.

Acid Storm said nothing.

*****

Shockwave hadn't flown in vorns. There was no energy, and there were more efficient ways to administer what was left of the planet. He had once been quite the flyer for a gunformer, using the energy that he normally fired to propel him through the atmosphere and even out into space; in his youth, he had traveled between planets.

But there was no need, now. Acid Storm had a reason to fly, but Shockwave would be most useful on the ground, monitoring and, if necessary, surviving.

Watching Acid Storm fly, Shockwave found himself nervous in a way he'd not been since Lord Megatron left him with the planet. There was a moment when Acid Storm nearly crashed taking off, and another when he almost--but not quite--went too far into the storm and damaged himself beyond repair.

But he landed, safely, and brought back enough energy to get them through the vorn. Another good rainstorm, and they could make Acid Storm a wingmate.

Shockwave was completely unprepared for Acid Storm's triumphant return. He was practically glowing with energy; Shockwave, who hadn't been fully fueled in millions of years, was nearly bowled over by Acid Storm's energy and excitement and triumph, as his creation _ran_ up to him and through his arms around him. "I did it! Shockwave, I did it!"

Overcharged, Shockwave realized. "We're going to have to siphon off some of that power....ah! I didn't mean...!" Acid Storm had plugged into him, and some of that delightful free energy was flooding through his systems.

He only barely maintained the presence of mind to grab an energon cube and start storing the energy as fast as he could before Acid Storm collapsed against him, spent.

*****

The designs were complete, the shell was built, and they had the energy to make Acid Storm a wingmate. Shockwave left it to his lieutenant--as he'd started thinking of Acid Storm--to greet him, and waited, attending to his other duties.

It was hard to focus on anything else, though, and his eyes kept catching the toys, still motionless on his table: Optimus Prime, with trailer and Roller; Skywarp, Thundercracker, and whoever the new one would be. It would have a name, soon.

They seemed dead, and pathetic, and even a little silly.

He glanced over at Megatron, on his shelf--even more pathetic, he knew, but he was allowed one weakness.

He would make no more of them. But it did no harm to let them continue to exist; there was no shortage of metal, on Cybertron, and sitting there they consumed no energy. But, still. Something useful should be done with them.

In any case, it was time to greet Acid Storm's wingmate and his new follower.

*****

Acid Storm and his wing gradually and quietly appropriated the seeker toys. The two originals were soon repainted, green and blue; they were the Rainmaker trine in miniature.

It seemed odd to Shockwave, to make replicas of Cybertronians who were _here_ , but now that he had a complete wing, their thinking increasingly developed in directions different from his own.

But not disappointingly so. Shockwave had forgotten what it was like, to work with intelligent mechs who were not himself, nor based on his own programming. He found himself, for the first time in vorns, missing Soundwave. It was...odd. He was not a social mech, but the Rainmakers did not irritate him the way most of the others did.

Perhaps he would make some more. Perhaps they would.

In the meantime--he looked at Megatron, still in a place of honor by his recharge station, and then at Optimus Prime, ignored on the table. He knew, now, what to do with him.

*****

"What is _that_?!" Moonracer stared down at the tiny truck, resting on the doorstep of their latest hiding place. "Elita! Chromia! I think we've been discovered!"

Elita came up behind her and stared down at it. "I...think we have."

"But by whom?" That was Firestar.

"Who else?" Asked Chromia contemptuously. "And it's probably a bomb, get away from it, all of you!"

"I don't think it is," Elita said quietly and decisively. "That's not Shockwave's style."

"And leaving you a miniature Optimus Prime _is_? Elita, I know you miss him, but don't let that cloud your judgement." Chromia pulled out an explosive charge. "Get _back_."

"No." Elita bent down and picked it up, examining it from all angles. "Not a bomb, but we're going to have to look it over closely for bugs." She transformed it, mech in one hand, trailer in the other. "Firestar, you know how to do that."

"Yes," Firestar stepped up to look at it. "It's....really well made."

"Why would he _do_ that?" Moonracer asked Chromia.

"Because he's a sick bastard. Elita, you're not really going to keep it?! Drop it, so I can blow it up, and then we switch bases," Chromia said.

"It's clean," Firestar said, disapprovingly. "As far as I can tell."

"Hmm." Elita examined it some more. "We're keeping it. I think, Chromia, Shockwave's realized we have some things in common."

"You and _him_?" Chromia snorted.

Elita carefully switched Optimus back into alt mode, and put him in a storage compartment. "Yes. I'm willing to bet the next orn's energon ration that Shockwave has one just like this, of _his_ missing leader."

Moonracer giggled. "I wouldn't take that bet, if I were you, Chromia."

Chromia snorted. "Don't blame me if we walk right into an ambush."

But the subject was clearly closed. "Come on. We need to find a new base." Elita set off into the ruins, expecting the others to follow.


End file.
